DeSoto schools hoard bad-weather days

Jan. 9, 2014 — Students walk to the busses after dismissal at Horn Lake High School. (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)

The Commercial Appeal

When some Mid-South school systems closed their doors earlier this month as temperatures and wind chills dropped to levels not normally seen in this area, DeSoto County Schools opted to remain open.

While not everyone agreed with the decision, school officials are confident it was the right one, given attendance requirements and the number of weather days available without affecting other activities already planned.

The problem, they say, is that Mississippi students must attend class for 180 days, 177 for seniors, during the school year. That means that any days missed because of weather, beyond the three built into this year’s school year calendar, must be made up before the end of the academic year.

In a system the size of DeSoto, the state’s largest public system, makeup days can be challenge if it starts pushing up against graduation dates at multiple high schools. And if it cuts into spring break, when families may already have trips planned, that generates complaints, officials say. Making up days on Saturdays is never popular, and attendance is usually low.

“If we feel it’s unsafe, we’ll make it up,” Supt. Milton Kuykendall said, “but it can be a tough call.”

The call is easier when precipitation is involved. School officials are out in the wee hours of the morning checking roads and bridges for icing. If driving conditions are deemed unsafe, making the call to cancel is pretty clear-cut. But during this month’s unusual, even for January, frigid temperatures, there was no precipitation. Roads were dry; it was just bitterly cold. Given that fact, and the fact that it was only early January, district officials decided it was best to hold onto the three weather days in case they’re needed later.

Not everyone saw it that way. Angry parents, grandparents and others took to social media to question the decision.

“Very, very disappointed in DCS at this moment!” Tawna Gean Helums of Southven said on the DeSoto County Schools Facebook page on Jan. 6. Helums called it “absurd” that children would have to go to school considering that many of them would either have to stand at bus stops or walk.

Lyn Hurst Rapp of Olive Branch also complained on Facebook, saying her son would not attend on especially cold days and that she would challenge an unexcused absence.

Kuykendall said attendance on the days in question was actually good, however, with 85 percent of students making it to school districtwide on Monday, Jan. 6, and 92 percent the following day. Makeup days, by contrast, typically only get about 50 percent attendance.

“We have about 1,400 classrooms, and we had heating issues in 28 rooms on those days,” Kuykendall said. “We moved those students to warmer spots, and our buses are heated, so we thought (attending) was the right decision.”

Kuykendall said further bolstering the decision was the fact that extensive school renovations were completed a few years ago, including upgrades to heating and air conditioning systems, so officials felt the schools were equipped to deal with weather extremes.